The Rowe's

The entirety of the second half of Sierra’s freshman year at Wagner College in Staten Island, NY, she heard endlessly about this guy in her friends’ sociology class. Some guy on the football team, who’d show up twice a month or so to their class and then leave with the highest test scores at the end of the day. Her friends had gone to every class, done all the homework, and even went as far as creating a study group with other students in the class, and no one could ever get higher than a 60. He was an enigma. Sierra knew that sociology was a winless battle, so she’d halfheartedly listened to her friends' stories about how difficult the class was and the boy who never showed up. She always wondered to herself why in the world this boy had them captivated the way he did. Sierra and her friends decided to have one last hooray at their legendary college bar, Liberty Tavern, on a Monday night. Obviously, Monday is not a typical night out. Even so, the girls ventured out onto Forest Ave that Monday night. The group of girls walked into the ghost town of a bar that night and instantly reminded them why they did in fact not come on a Monday night. Over the loud Monday night football game the bar had playing on every tv and the shitty music barely coming out of the tacky jukebox in the wall, Sierra overheard her friend talking to their other friend about the guy in their class again. “He’s here.”One of the girls said. Following her friend’s nod behind her, Sierra turned to see a guy standing alone with his back against the wall. He wore a baseball hat, black shirt, and rolled up jeans. The typical male uniform at a bar. His hand, white knuckled, clutching a pitcher full of a drink so closely to his chest, you’d think someone had attempted to steal it from him. Well… at least, the expression on his face told her. In that second, the simmering lights produced by their fantastic stories of the mystery boy completely blew out. It was like the air being let out of a balloon slowly. As it turns out, Sierra had seen him before in the dining hall. She distinctly remembers seeing him and thinking “Who does this guy think he is? He must really think he’s cool.” “Him?!” She laughed mockingly at her friends. For some unknown reason, even to this very day, Sierra’s mind created the thought that she wanted to say hi and introduce herself. There were two reasons why this was a dumb idea. They were complete strangers, so the risk of coming off as a total creep ran high and the look on his face. Despite this, Sierra slid off of her barstool, told her friends that she was going to say hi, and strutted cockily right up to the enigma himself. About a foot away, Sierra stopped in front of the guy. He had his head turned to the side, watching the football game with an aggravated look across his face. “Are you Alex Rowe?” Sierra arrogantly asked.The guy let out a deep irritated sigh. As he turned his head, he rolled his eyes, barely looked at her and said “Yeah” immediately turning attention back to the game. Shocked by the lack of wanting any part of the conversation she was going to try to have, Sierra practically ran back to her seat with her friends. The girls laughed it all off, but Sierra had never been so completely embarrassed like that. She’d somehow convinced that she had desensitized herself from being able to feel any sort of embarrassment, thanks to the traumatically awkward adolescent and teenage years she had endured. She could have melted in that very spot. She was perplexed. He turned out to be pretty cool.